One way to start living more frugally is to cut back on your transportation. Take the bus to work when you can; ride a bike on casual errands; and use your own two legs -- it's good for you and costs nothing! But if you still need a car to commute, you can certainly work out better ways to spend money on a vehicle. Start by only keeping one! If you live in a two-car household, you can arrange to carpool, either together or with other coworkers, and get rid of that second car.

But why is getting rid of a second car economical? First, you can save money on gas. Unless you and the person who drives the other car go in the exact opposite direction at all times, at least starting your commute together will save gas money. With the price of fuel these days, you may need all the help you can get trimming this portion of your budget, and putting your vehicle count into the single digits will force you to get creative about not spending gas on that one car you do have.

Second, having only one car keeps you from getting lazy or complacent. A car is a huge convenience item, and allows you to travel freely and take things for granted (for example, the fact that a grocery store is only ten minutes walking time from your house -- if you drive the two minutes, you'll never appreciate its proximity to you). If you have to actually coordinate schedules around the one car, you'll be forced to eliminate some non-priorities, which in the end may help you appreciate the things you keep that much more, as well as cut back on stress you don't actually need.

Third, just one car is much more environmentally friendly. A car takes up a huge part of your "footprint," especially when the car churns horrible emissions gasses into the atmosphere, and while pulling one car off the road won't change the course of any impending global disasters that might exist, it will certainly be one step you can take towards a cleaner, healthier world.

Finally, if you sell your second vehicle, you can get some extra money to bolster your budget. Sure, that old clunker won't bring in more than a couple of thousand, but that's a couple thousand more than you had before. Besides, you put that towards gas money for the car you keep, and not fret about how you'll get around for at least a few months.

How do you save money and help the environment? We want to tell your story! Email us at blogger@garagesalecow.com and tell us all about it -- we'll blog on it in the future!